


Glimpse of the Future

by caz251



Series: Just Write! Trope Bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Just Write! Trope Bingo 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25697740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caz251/pseuds/caz251
Summary: A child fallen through the rift into the hub allows a small glimpse of the future.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Just Write! Trope Bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857748
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58





	Glimpse of the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt Inexplicable babies for my trope bingo card.

For Ianto Jones working in Cardiff on top of a rift in space and time was just part of his everyday life, it was as common as popping to the shops for some milk. Working for Torchwood had desensitised him to a lot of things, there was still a lot of things that could surprise him don’t get him wrong, but a lot of things that were weird and unusual seemed commonplace to him nowadays. Time travellers, space debris, dinosaurs they were all just part of the day job, but sometimes the rift would throw something out that was just a bit outside the teams realm of knowledge.

Normally one of them would step up and figure out how to work with whatever the problem was, if it was technological Toshiko would step in, medical was Owen’s field, and Jack tend to charge in on anything outwith those realms. This time it had been left to him to deal with as he was the only one on the team that appeared to have any experience at all with young children. His experience was not that great either, he wasn’t around his neice or nephew much when they were younger, but it appeared he was the most accomplished on the team.

A small child turning up in the middle of the hub next to the rift manipulator wasn’t routine in the slightest. Toshiko had let out a little scream when she noticed him, drawing the rest of the team to find out what was wrong. Jack had tried to get close to the boy, but the child seemed to start crying when he caught sight of him and Ianto who had been closer at the time picked him up instead.

Toshiko had buried herself in her computer trying to figure out if there was any way that they could try and return the child to his own time. Jack was hiding in his office, Ianto was sure that he would be contacting Helen out at Flat Holm trying to work out if it was feasible to house the child with the other rift immigrants if necessary, and had been since the young boy started to cry. Owen had given him a check up, moaning the whole time that he wasn’t a paediatrician , and had then backed away from the boy, claiming that he needed to be checking over his results so couldn’t watch him. Ianto had expected Gwen to step up and want to look after the little boy, she was normally all about helping out the victims of the rift and she had offered, but for some reason every time she got close to the little boy and tried to take him from Ianto he would cry and scream for his Tad.

As the little boy was crying and mumbling to himself in Welsh Ianto seemed to have been seen as the natural babysitter and he had managed to get the child to stop crying. The fact that he was speaking a mixture of Welsh and English made Ianto ask Gwen to run a search for any children matching his description missing in Wales, for all they knew he could be from this time zone and the rift had moved him geographically and not temporally, or the child may have somehow just stumbled into the hub his proximity to the rift manipulator nothing but a coincidence. Her search proved fruitless, but it could have been a possibility so it never hurt to check it out.

Owen had approximated his age as about three years old and from initial checks he seemed to be healthy enough if a little stressed and upset by the situation. At Ianto suggestion they took a quick DNA swab from the child, there may be a way to find his parents if they could find a match. Owen had looked sceptical, but Ianto just had a feeling that the child was local, that he was from Wales perhaps even from Cardiff.

The little boy had stopped crying and was curled up in Ianto’s lap, one of his hands curled into his waistcoat between two of the buttons, holding on like it was a lifeline that would disappear if he let go. He was sleeping, and although it wasn’t a deep sleep, he had dropped off a lot easier than Ianto would have expected. For some reason the little boy seemed comfortable with him, a lot more comfortable with him than Ianto felt, suddenly responsible for looking after such a small child with no warning. The boy, and they had to think of something to call him or than boy or child, seemed to be coping remarkably well surrounded by strangers, other than having called for his tad.

Ianto hadn’t been able to make out much off his mutterings earlier, other than it had been a mix of the two languages he spoke best, but they had decided they would ask him some questions when he woke up. Ianto was hoping that it was sooner rather than later as his legs had gone numb with having been sat for so long on the uncomfortable couch the child on top of him. Jack had sat next to him now that the tears had dried up and the noise level had gone down and had offered to take him, but he had Ianto’s waistcoat in quite the grip and the Welshman didn’t have the heart to try and wake him to move him.

Their resident pet ended up being the one to wake the child, Owen had been feeding Myfanwy in place of Ianto and hadn’t latched the gate on her eerie properly, which had led to her getting out and coming to investigate the new person in their midst. The team were all wary when she perched on the back of the couch and raised her head over Ianto’s shoulder to see the child, they didn’t think that she would hurt him as she seemed to treat them all like her pets, but they hadn’t expected that she would start preening his hair.

The boy was giggling as he awoke, the prehistoric animal tugging on strands of his dark hair, not in the least afraid of the creature. Ianto was rather startled at the lack of reaction to his pet, but even more so at the words that came from the boys mouth, “Myfanwy, mae hynny'n ticio.” (that tickles)

Owen had just came up from his lab area, a file in hand looking to be in shock when the child noticed Jack next to him again. He leaned over and touched Jack’s stomach, “Daddy, where’s baby?” He asked, his little eyes filling with tears again.

Owen handed the file to Ianto, “Congratulations Tad, seems the kid belongs to the pair of you.” He looked at Jack, “I thought that you were joking about having been pregnant thing, surely that is something that I need to know is fact.”

Ianto just looked between Owen and his lover, then his eyes dropped down to the child, his child, he had Jack’s hair and looking with the eyes that were slowly filling with tears it was to see his own eyes reflected back at him.

Jack seemed to take control of the situation quickly, snapping out of his shock when he heard a small sob from the child. He waved the rest of the team away and pulled the little boy, and they really needed to figure out what his name was, into his lap and settled him so that he was facing him. “Hey kiddo, don’t cry, did Tad or I tell you about time travel?”

He got a small nod in response and Jack smiled back at their son, and wasn’t that a strange thought, they had a kid together, and if he was to be believed Jack was pregnant again. “Okay kiddo, so don’t be scared, Tad and I are here, but you are in the past, okay. We haven’t met you yet, so can you tell us your name?”

“Owain,” he hiccupped, poking at Jack’s belly, “So no baby yet? No Owain either? You and Tad know I’m here?”

Jack just shook his head, “Nope, no baby and Owain, not yet. Do you know what date it is for you Owain? We can leave a message for ourselves telling us where you are.”

Owain gave them a date and Jack started to fiddle with his vortex manipulator no doubt leaving a message for himself telling him when Owain had appeared. Ianto couldn’t stop staring at Owain, his son, his and Jack’s little boy, who they had for some reason decided to name after Owen. From the date that he had given them and the Owen’s prediction of his age range he would be appearing in their lives a lot sooner than he would have expected, not that he would have ever expected a child to come of his and Jack’s relationship. He glanced away from Owain to look at his lover and noticed that Jack was just as fixated on their little one as he was.

He caught Jack’s eye and the other man just looked away, looking back at Owain, a soft look in his eyes as he played with their son’s hair. “He’s perfect.” Jack whispered, “A perfect mix of the two of us.”

“He’s really ours?” Ianto spoke quietly, still not quite able to believe it. “He’s here, but we have to give him back don’t we? And we’ll need to forget this won’t we?”

“Owen will be preparing the retcon, he would have started as soon as he realised it was a temporal issue.” Jack stated quietly.

“But can you? Is it safe?” Ianto asked.

“I’m taking my own precautions, I started as soon as I realised.” Jack tapped his vortex manipulator as he spoke.

Ianto just nodded, knowing that Jack had ways of locking away his own memories with the help of his wrist strap. Ianto looked around the hub quickly seeking out their teammates who all appeared to be trying to give them some space. He wondered if they were as shocked by the turn of events as he was, probably not quite as much as he was, but it definitely wasn't the day to day experience, even in Torchwood.

He was glad that they were giving them some privacy and a bit of time to come to terms with the knowledge that they would be parents. Knowing the future was a scary thought, and in a way he was glad that they were going to forget this day as he didn't want to remember the details of their child. He wanted to learn them as Owain grew, and he was worried about what the future held for him. It seemed strange to him that he would name his son after Owen in any way, but he knew that if they lost Owen they would want to remember him.

He didn't think he wanted to remember that they might lose one of their teammates so soon. He did want to try and stop anything from happening to the other man, but doing so could change the timeline and change the course of their child’s future. He was sure that Jack was thinking through the possibilities of what could be happening between now and Owain's birth. Ianto didn't really want to think about it and he would be glad to take the retcon so as he no longer had the knowledge of what could happen. At least he and Jack alone had heard Owain's name, and none of the rest of the team had the knowledge of what could happen in the recent future.

Ianto would need to make sure that it was him that deleted the internal cctv in the hub of the time Owain was here, it wouldn't be fair on Toshiko to have to try and hide that burden before the retcon kicked in. Jack would no doubt come up with some other task for her to distract her from doing that, allowing Ianto to delete the footage so that they couldn’t check back on what had happened and trigger their memories.

“I wonder when you will come for him.” Ianto whispered softly, in an attempt to not wake Owain who had slipped back into sleep with Jack stroking his hair softly.

Jack grimaced a bit, Ianto catching the look from the corner of his eye. “I won’t be able to.” Jack admitted. “I don’t have working time travel abilities with my vortex manipulator unless I have figured that out in the last few years, and even if I have I can’t travel using it if I am pregnant it would be too dangerous. I’m assuming I will be trying to call in the Doctor for a lift, but I don’t know how long that will take me, and his timing isn’t exactly great.”

Ianto sighed, he wasn’t an expert on time travel, but he did know that the longer Owain stayed here in his past the more chance there was of endangering his own timeline. “We have nothing for him, and there’s hardly any food at home, we’ll need to go shopping.”

Jack was about to speak when Toshiko spoke up from her desk, “We’ve got another life sign in the hub Jack, coming from your bunker.”

Jack started to move to go and confront the intruder before realising that Owain was still in his lap. Ianto reached a hand out to steady him as he pushed him back into a seated position. “I’ll go. Owen, Gwen.” He spoke up, but hadn’t needed to his teammates were already waiting to go with him to secure whoever it was who had broken into the hub. Toshiko stayed with Jack and Owain, who was thankfully still sleeping.

They made it into Jack’s office only for Ianto to come face to face with himself coming out of Jack’s bunker. He didn’t look much different, only looking slightly older, Ianto would have assumed that Torchwood would have taken its toll more if this was as he believed the version of him from Owain’s timeline, well Torchwood and parenthood.

“Is he here?” The other man asked, the worry in his eyes confirming to Ianto what he had instinctively known when he saw the other man, this was Owain’s Tad.

“This way.” Ianto told him, leading him into the main part of the hub, keeping as much distance between himself and his other self as possible, he had been with Torchwood long enough and read enough science fiction novels to know that it would be bad if they touched.

It was plain to see the relief in his older self when he caught sight of Owain curled up on Jack’s lap, “Baban.” He whispered almost inaudibly, as he looked towards the child, before he turned to them and spoke more loudly, “Thank you for keeping him safe.”

Future him reached towards Jack to pick Owain up and Ianto caught sight of Jack’s vortex manipulator on his wrist, they must get it working at some point in the future, but he never would expect to be the one using it to travel in time, although if Jack was unable to go for him he couldn’t imagine sending anyone else to get their child. Jack seemed almost reluctant to hand Owain over, it wasn’t noticeable to the rest of them, but Ianto knew that he and his future self had noticed.

Owain awoke as he was passed from one parent to another and his eyes lit up when he saw two versions of Ianto. “Tad.” He squealed, “we go home to daddy?”

Future Ianto spoke quietly with Owain for a moment before thanking them all again for looking after him, fiddled with the vortex manipulator and the two of them vanished from the hub. Toshiko went back to her computer, checking the life signs for the hub she confirmed it was just the five of them left there.

“He wasn’t sure the boy was here? He should have known shouldn’t he, you have already lived this.” Gwen spoke up, looking a bit confused.

“Retcon.” Owen spoke up, “I have it ready in the conference room. Gwen do you want to grab us all some water and if we all head up there.”

“I’ll delete the cctv footage.” Ianto spoke up quickly, wanting to get in there before Toshiko could. Jack called her over to him, obviously realising what Ianto was trying to do. He quickly deleted all the footage from the time Owain arrived in the hub until Owen’s mention of retcon, he left the rest of the current footage as if they looked back on it all they would see was them preparing to retcon themselves, which would prove to them that they had retconned themselves.

As they took the retcon Ianto saw Jack palm his, hiding it in his pocket and pressing a button on his wrist strap. Ianto’s last thought before the sedative Owen mixed in with the retcon kicked in was of Owain, his and Jack’s little boy, the child that based on the timeline was growing in his lover at the moment.


End file.
